The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has adopted a declaration welcoming the decision to stay the execution of a mentally-ill man in New Orleans but also regretting the most recent executions which have taken place in the states of Georgia and Missouri.
The committee expressed concern that several executions have been carried out “in particularly dire circumstances” this year, leading some US states to consider changing death penalty practices.
It urged authorities in the US to use this opportunity to “reach the conclusion that there is no legitimate and clean way to continue with this inhuman practice” and to establish a moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards abolition.
The United States enjoys observer status at the Council of Europe which, through the European Convention on Human Rights, has ended the use of the death penalty across its 47 member states.